Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-11-23 (Saturday)

On Nov 24, 2024 at 10:04:54 AM PST, "Arthur Lipscomb"
<arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

Wicked (theatrical) New musical based on the hit Broadway show.  Cynthia
Eribo stars as Elphaba and Ariana Grande stars as Galinda, with a "Ga."
Elphaba is unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite
impossible to describe.  While Galinda is blonde.  The two of them meet
at Shiz University and at first hate each other, experiencing the
feeling of unadulterated loathing.  But eventually Galinda decides to
help Elphaba become popular.  Unfortunately, something sinister starts
to take shape in Oz as the animals have their rights and even voices
striped from them.  Elphaba and Galinda make their way to the Wizard of
Oz (Jeff Goldblum) for help.  But once they arrive Elphaba realizes
something has changed within her.  Something is not the same.  She is
through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.  She decides
it's time to try defying gravity.
 
This was a lot better than the stage version.  It's the same songs, and
although the movie 160 minutes long, and only tells the first act of the
stage musical, I didn't detect much new that wasn't in the stage
version.  But what the theatrical version does is the movie really opens
up the scenery to expand the world in a way that can't be done on a
stage.  Also I saw this in 3D, and the staging of the musical numbers
definitely had 3D in mind.  Fans of the stage version should be very
happy with this movie version.

Our local theaters have to resort to posting threats to kick out any die hard
fans of the musical who insist on singing along with the actors on screen.
Apparently these obsessed fans were ruining the movie for everyone else. In
exchange, AMC is scheduling special sing-along screenings just for fans who
can't contain themselves.